The Laurentians’s Mont Avila shares the same ridge as the larger Mont St-Sauveur. The small ski area’s history isn’t as rich as its western neighbour. The development of Mont Avila started in 1957. The ski lodge burnt down in the early 1970s and was replaced a lodge made of concrete.
Mont Avila was bought by neighbouring Mont St-Sauveur in 1987. The trails and lands were adjacent to one another. That was MSSI’s first purchase in the Valley, it also owned Jay Peak at the time. Over the next decade MSSI would go on to purchase 3 other neighbouring ski areas (Mont Gabriel, Morin Heights, Mont Olympia) plus Edelweiss in the Outaouais north of Ottawa.
Since the arrival of the Laurentians Autoroute to St-Sauveur-des-Monts in the 1963, Mont Avila has been the “first ski area north of Montreal”.
This week’s brochure from around 1980 when Mont Avila was still an independent ski hill separate from its neighbour. Mont Avila was a 7 trails ski area with night skiing in the Winter and a Sportplex in the Summer which includes tennis courts and a heated exterior pool.
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